Permission to publish material from John Shaw Billings letters must be obtained from Special Collections, Virginia Tech.
Collection is open for research.
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: John Shaw Billings letters, Ms2013-071, Special Collections, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va.
The John Shaw Billings letters were acquired by Special Collections prior to 2009.
The processing, arrangement, and description of the John Shaw Billings letters was completed in September 2013.
John Shaw Billings, MD, was born in Indiana in 1838. He graduated from Miami University in 1857 and then attended the Medical College of Ohio and obtained his degree in 1860. Billings enlisted in the Union Army on April 16, 1862. He was commission an officer in the Regular Army Medical Staff Infantry Regiment. By the end of the Civil War, Billings had been promoted to Brevet Lt. Colonel.
In 1865, Billings was appointed Director of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office. In the thirty years he spent in that position, he was instrumental in expanding their collection of medical resources and compiling an index for the collection to aid in research.
Sources:
The collection includes letters written by Dr. John Shaw Billings to Dr. Willis G. Tucker of Albany, NY. The three letters all date to October 1880. In the letters Billings acknowledges the receipt of several medical pamphlets Tucker donated to the Library of the Surgeon General's Office of which Billings was the Director. Billings thanks Tucker for the donation and also notes that he, "would be very glad to...receive odd numbers of medical journals and